Between Places
by giadysik
Summary: [Re-posted with permission of original author ctjay00187.] One night not after the dust settled on their FCW war, William Regal finds Dean Ambrose walking alone in the rain. Against his better judgment, Regal offers him a ride. Things don't quite go the way Regal expects. [Ambregal one-shot with a twist. Slash.]


_[Gia's Notes: This little gem of a story was originally posted by author ctjay00187 last year. She took it down for personal reasons, but generously gave me permission to post it again. I've included all the original author's notes and so on. Thanks again, ctjay00187. **Warning**: story does contain a major character death.]_

Notes: This is my first foray into Ambrose/Regal fiction. I fell in love with the pairing after reading mxjoyride's amazing "Wrecking Now" and never looked back. This started out as smut, but plot happened and the whole thing left-turned on me. Strap in, kiddies. This is a twisty little ride.

"Between Places"**  
**by ctjay00187

xx

(_"Gar. Ret. Far. Ley."_)

Blinking, soaked to the skin, and startled to find himself standing beside his car, William Regal opens the door and climbs in.

xx

Late summer night in Florida, and good lord, the sky has torn wide open.

Rain gushes down like blood pouring out of an open head wound – not in drops, but in sheets. It hits the ground so hard that in the dim light from all the headlamps it looks like the rain is falling upward. The noise it makes is incredible: a furious sort of animal roar, heavy and constant and driving.

All around, lightning flashes and flickers, a mixture of more diffuse light like strobe lights flickering distant between the clouds, and of the cloud-to-ground bolts of jet white that snap and crackle like there's some giant hand somewhere flicking a whip made of pure energy. Thunder rumbles mutinous against it all, by turns sharp and sullen, shaking the very earth like a child trying to kick over a toy castle.

The weatherman on the radio swears it's not a hurricane, just a rainstorm, but at eleven o'clock on a mostly-deserted street not far from an empty arena, William Regal isn't quite convinced.

The rain hasn't quite choked the streets to the point of impassibility yet, but it's bloody close.

It's like a curtain in front of him, obscuring everything more than a few feet ahead.

"-flash flood warning remains in effect until-"

Annoyed, Regal snaps the radio off and negotiates his car around a corner and through what appears to be a small river, one that rushes merrily toward a flooded gutter.

A flicker of red-and-white lights behind him draws his attention to his rearview mirror. It's well behind him, back in the distance somewhere, and he can't hear any sirens over the storm.

Headed off in the opposite direction, most like.

Someone caught out in a flood, perhaps, or a lightning strike somewhere.

"Bloody storm," he mutters, as he presses on.

Late summer night in Florida, and this is how he's ending his first night back at work.

Limited duty for him – no in-ring work or anything else physical. His brains had gotten more scrambled than he'd realized during that last match with Ambrose – not so much that it's incapacitating, but enough that the only work his doctor has cleared him for involves his backside in a chair.

The headaches subsided ages ago and so did all the light and sound sensitivity. That rushing carnival-ride dizziness only comes if he hasn't slept enough or if he makes any moves that involve himself being flipped over (something that happens commonly as a professional wrestler, but, fortunately, almost never happens in his day-to-day life). His concentration and memory are fine, again, as long as he's not tired – a small handful of times he's found himself confused as to how he's gotten where he is, but that hasn't happened in over a week.

He's been quite moody lately, though, and it has certainly cost him.

(_It's been two weeks since she took the kids and went back to Atlanta. She's only called once, and he'd spent the entire conversation cheerfully imagining his hands around her throat. It must have come through in his voice because she'd hung up and never called back._)

Getting back to work tonight had been a step in the right direction. Even if all he's allowed to do is match commentary, well, that's certainly better than sitting alone in his empty cathedral of a townhouse. It had engaged and invigorated him.

It had worn him out, as well, which he finds a touch distressing considering how little he actually _did_, but-

A flash of lightning illuminates something up ahead and pulls a startled, "What on Earth...?" out of him.

He leans forward, squinting through the squall, in an attempt to make out whatever's out there.

Just up ahead, less than a quarter of a block away, there's a figure in a soaked-through white shirt walking hunched against the rain. A man, he sees as the light from his headlamps splashes through the dark, wearing jeans that are just as soaked as the rest of him.

Even through the sheeting curtain of rain, though, Regal recognizes the set of his shoulders, the lines of his back, the walk.

His first wild instinct is to laugh.

Of all the people Regal knows, he can think of perhaps two who would be hard-headed enough to be out walking on a night like this.

Ambrose is one of them.

He's exactly the sort to be out defying God and all good sense in the middle of a driving, dangerous rainstorm.

Probably feels right at home.

Regal's second instinct is to keep driving.

He doubts very much that anyone would care if he left the boy to drown.

(_Wouldn't be the first time, would it?_)

They – _he_ – would be better off.

But.

Things would certainly be less interesting, wouldn't they?

Of course, old habits die hard, and he can't quite help thinking that this could be interesting.

Perhaps even fun.

He'd always like his mice lively, and they don't come much livelier than the human force of nature out there.

That decided, Regal negotiates his way around another overflowing gutter and pulls up to a crooked stop on the sidewalk. He honks his horn, rolls down his passenger window. Ambrose gives his car a quick, suspicious look, and keeps walking.

Muttering invective under his breath, Regal pulls forward again, stops, and honks.

This time, Ambrose walks over. He glances into the passenger window, then rolls his eyes heavenward, "You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me." His mouth twists into something like a sneer. "Oh, this just keeps getting better and better." He looks down then; in the inky dark around them, his eyes are shadow-covered and unreadable, but Regal can practically feel the glare burning into his skin. "What the fuck do _you_ want?"

The tough-guy act, though, is somewhat sullied by the way his hair is plastered to his face and the way he's quite clearly shivering. The storm has dropped the temperature a fair bit, and Regal imagines that in sopping wet clothing it feels quite miserable.

"Do you need a lift?" Regal finally asks, raising his voice to be heard over the pounding rain. "Bit of a bad night to be out for a walk."

"Yeah, no fuckin' shit."

"Yes, well, you can either stay outside and drown," Regal says, not bothering to check his impatience, "or you can get in where it's warm. Up to you, really, but do be quick about it. I haven't got all night."

Ambrose, stubborn fool that he is, squints off into the downpour, expression making it clear he wants to refuse, just on principle, but eventually he just nods sourly, and climbs in.

Regal kicks the heat up a notch and ignores the little voice in the back of his head nagging that his passenger seat is going to be ruined by all the water in Ambrose's clothing. Water, he tells himself, will dry sooner or later.

Ambrose, meanwhile hunches down into the seat, arms crossed over his chest, obviously trying not to shiver but failing. He sniffles and reaches up to swipe the water that's dripped from his hair out of his face. His boots make a squishing sound as he adjusts his feet. His thin tee shirt is almost translucent.

Easing the car back out onto the street, Regal says, "Where were you headed?"

"I don't fuckin' know."

"Oh, just fancied a stroll, did you?" Regal retorts. But he frowns as something occurs to him. "Isn't your truck back at the arena? I know I saw it when I got there..."

He'd walked right past it, in fact, and dread had settled like a weight in his stomach.

"It _was,_" Ambrose says then, and the words are the dry rasp of sandpaper over raw wood. "It ain't there now."

"Someone stole your truck?"

"Pretty sure I know who took it. This fuckin' druggie wannbe wrestler I let crash with me a couple times. Garret. Probably halfway to fuckin' Miami with it right now. But he'll be back sooner or later."

"Do you want to go to the police anyway?" Regal asks. Not that he particularly wants to be out on a night that's trying to drown them, but something about that doesn't sit right with him.

Ambrose shakes his head. "He'll get his, eventually."

"All right. Back your place, then? I'm sure your landlord could let you in, if you don't have your key."

"Kinda between places right now," Ambrose mutters. "That little asshole Farley's fault, too. Anyway," he adds, waving that last aside, "I _was _just gonna get a hotel or something, but now I got no money, so like I said, I don't know where the fuck I'm going. Some fuckin' night."

Privately, Regal agrees. "Well, I've got a spare room." _Or three_. "I'd just as soon get out of this mess, anyway, so mine it is."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ambrose give him a clouded-over sort of look – a caged wild dog eyeing a passerby – but the only thing he says is, "All right. Um. Thanks."

"Of course."

That, Regal thinks, was almost too easy.

Still, beggars couldn't look gift horses – or however it went.

Late summer night in Florida, and things really couldn't get any more surreal, could they?

Ambrose sinks down sullen in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, and Regal decides to leave him to it. He has more important things worry about at the moment, anyway, like trying not to get them lost or worse as he captains his little ship through the squall.

At one point, though, as they're stopped at an intersection, he glances at his passenger, and then has to do a double-take: in the red light from the flashing sign the water dripping down Ambrose's face had almost looked like blood.

It isn't, though, but Regal still finds himself frowning as he blinks the image away.

Fifteen tense minutes later, the little hand squeezing his chest relaxes a bit as his building finally comes into view. Three minutes after that, Regal leads Ambrose through the garage and into the condo's kitchen.

Regal snaps on a light and turns to Ambrose, who's dripping water all over the entryway rug. "You can take your boots off there," he says, kneeling down to untie his own shoes. "They'll be fine."

"Right," Ambrose mutters. He squats down to remove his own boots. His movements, Regal observes, are clumsy, fumbling, like his hands aren't quite working. Eventually, though, he manages to work the boots off and climb back to his feet.

His tee shirt clings to him in a way that sends all manner of dirty thoughts spiraling through Regal's head. But before they become much of a problem, Ambrose takes a few soggy steps into the kitchen and says, "Nobody home?"

Regal shakes his head and shoots Ambrose a quick look to warn him not to ask. "Let's get out of these wet clothes, shall we? I'm sure I can dig something up for you."

Clearing his throat, Ambrose says, "Mind if I take a shower? I'm still fucking freezing."

"Not at all."

He leads the way upstairs and around to the small bathroom his boys had shared, and leaves Ambrose there with a murmured, "I'll bring you something to put on."

Ambrose who, in the mellow overhead light, looks washed-out and tired and a bit like a drowned cat, nods his thanks. He's already got his soaked-through tee shirt stripped halfway off before Regal gets the door shut, a tantalizing strip of tan skin exposed over the top of worn old jeans that fit him like they were made for him.

Regal shakes his head as he makes his way back to his own room.

This, he thinks, is going to be an interesting night.

If they manage not to fight.

Once in his room, he makes quick work of his own sodden suit, and uses a towel grabbed from his own bathroom to dry himself off. That done, he dresses himself in his much less formal sleepwear – dark flannel trousers and a dark tee shirt – and digs out a worn gray tee shirt and black shorts for his guest. These he takes along with a clean towel and drops off in the bathroom.

Ambrose, fortunately, is in the shower, and Regal can't help snorting when he catches himself fighting the impulse to sweep aside the shower curtain.

He gathers up Ambrose's soaked clothing off the floor and carries it, along with his own, downstairs to the laundry room. He hangs his suit up to dry, but doesn't think twice about chucking Ambrose's clothes into the dryer.

After that, there's not much to do but wait.

He finds himself at the back door, watching the storm.

It's blown itself out a bit, from the looks of things, the rain steady and sweeping restless against the glass, but not coming down in those angry sheets. The lighting looks like it's moved off a bit, too, flickering high up and distant, with the odd quiet grumble of thunder chasing it.

It hasn't passed just yet, but it's finally on its way.

He's still watching when he hears footsteps pad into the kitchen behind him.

Regal glances around, and then does a quick double-take, breath catching in his throat.

Ambrose had opted to forgo the shirt altogether, leaving him clad in just the shorts, which ride low on his hips. He's all wiry lean muscle, his body well-toned from hours spent in the gym and tanned from hours spent out at the beach. His chest is lightly haired and lightly scarred, thin white lines – barbed wire, Regal thinks – crisscrossing his skin like road lines on map.

The old anger and new desire curl up his spine like a slow flame.

Ambrose is frowning a bit as he wanders over to stand beside Regal at the door. "Looks like it's letting up, finally."

"That it does."

Thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance, and Ambrose folds his arms over his chest, hands cradling his elbows. "I used to be scared of thunderstorms when I was a kid."

"Really."

"Mm. The noise. Too much like gunshots. I hated that shit." Suddenly he looked like he was a thousand miles away. "Best day of my life when I picked up and left that shithole."

"I don't doubt," Regal says. "Come a long way, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

Before the silence can get awkward, Regal says, "It's quite late. I think we could both do with a good night's sleep. I'll show up to where you can stay."

"Uh, yeah, in a minute," Ambrose says. He turns so he's leaning backward against the door, and looks at Regal with a vague frown. "Meant to ask you – how are, um, like, how are you doing? I mean, I heard they won't clear you for anything besides desk work."

"I'm fine physically," Regal says. "Bit of a ways to go yet neurologically. Why?"

_Planning on finishing the job?_

"I dunno. I was just – wondering. You know." His shoulders jerk. "Like do I need to sleep with an eye open, or...?"

Regal snorts. "No. Believe it or not, I have neither need nor desire to avenge my wounded ego."

Ambrose shoots him a disbelieving look. "Why do I get the feeling you're trying to lull me into a false sense of security?"

_Because you're not an idiot_, Regal thinks.

"Because you're paranoid." Regal says. "How've you been, by the way? I heard you've only just gotten back to work yourself. The shoulder?"

"Yeah, they wanted me to take some time off and let it heal this time. That and pretty much nobody wants to get near me. They got me working darks."

"Can't imagine why."

"Huh, yeah." He clears his throat and looks up at the ceiling. "Any regrets?"

"Sorry?"

"About all the shit that happened with us. Besides the fact that you lost, I mean."

"_Officially_ I never lost," Regal points out. "That aside, not really. It wasn't the way I wanted it to end, clearly, but at least it was on my terms. I didn't embarrass myself. I put up a bloody good fight. I enjoyed winding you up before the match. So not really, no. Why?"

"I dunno. I wondered. Was kinda hoping all this shit was done. You know?"

"It would have been a long time ago if you'd accepted your defeat with any semblance of grace."

"I had a right to a rematch." It's the verbal equivalent of a shrug. "Everybody has a right to a rematch with anyone who beats them. That's the business."

"So if I asked for one if I'm ever to the point I'm medically cleared...?"

Ambrose snorts. "You want me to kick your ass again, I wouldn't say no."

"I'd still manage to get my fair share in."

"I'm sure you would." Again, it comes out like a matter of fact. Ambrose shifts and gives Regal a narrow, thoughtful look. "You ever think what might've happened if maybe we'd, like, found some way to work together instead of turning all that shit against each other? Like I don't have a fuckin' clue how it would've worked – me and you ain't exactly team players, and you know how I get about people telling me what to do – and I'm sure it would have ended up a big fuckin' disaster, but..."

"But?"

"Maybe we'd actually have something to show for all this instead of just you with a fucked up head and me with a fucked up shoulder and nobody willing to wrestle me."

Regal chuckles. "You see the basic problem with your headfirst approach? You tend to miss sensible and logical alternatives." Because he can, and because he's a little too tired for anything more subtle, because all of a sudden he's bloody tired of fighting himself about this, he reaches over and trails a slow fingertips down Ambrose's chest. The skin is firm and warm from the shower, bumpy with scars and a bit scratchy with hair. "It did occur to me, you know, us doing something other than fighting. But by that point, you appeared to be set on your path of mutually assured destruction."

"I didn't think you'd want to." Ambrose's voice is soft, uneven.

"You never asked."

_Me and you_.

True villains.

And the world as their playground.

It never would have worked, Ambrose is right about that, but still, Regal doesn't doubt it would have been spectacular before it all imploded.

He runs his fingers down further, toward the flat, hard plane of Ambrose's stomach, fingers ghosting over an old scar. "But I suppose that's past and done, isn't it? There's nothing says we couldn't now, is there? Leave all the flaming wreckage behind us, and perhaps try again? Or failing that, get this out of our systems once and for all, and go our separate ways."

"...yeah," Ambrose said, voice gone thick. "Yeah, we – that...that could happen. It – uh, yeah, at least once, right? It should happen. Definitely it should be a thing that happens."

Regal chuckles. "Quite agreeable tonight, aren't you? More chatty, too. What's brought this on?"

"I dunno," Ambrose says, swallowing, eyes flicking upward once more. "I had a close call the other day and I got to thinking, fuck, way I'm going, I'm probably gonna wind up beat to death in a parking lot or stabbed in a bar or dead 'cuz somebody threw me headfirst out of the ring. Something. And it's like, I haven't – I mean, I've _done_ stuff, right? Like in the ring, and, like, it's been _good, _it's been fucking amazing, but that's all there is. Like, everybody hates me outside the ring – and not I'm not saying that like some whiny emo punk. I'm saying that as in I've, like, gone outta my way to make sure they do. But I was thinking, you know, that's kind of – it's...I'm not sure..." Here he trails off and makes a rather frustrated noise. "I just – I don't want everybody to hate me. Just most people. You know? That's – I mean, I guess...fuck..." He pushes a hand through his hair. "I sound like an asshole, don't I? What the fuck do I care if people hate me or not?"

"It's natural, isn't it?" Regal finally says. "Nobody _likes_ to be hated, no matter how much they pretend they do. Even us true villains, we need something more than just the hate."

For probably the first time in his life, he thinks he actually understands Ambrose.

It's honestly a bit frightening.

Ambrose nods. "I guess."

"And if by people you mean me," Regal says then, still absently running a hand along Ambrose's side, "rest assured I've never hated you. I find you utterly infuriating and obnoxious most of the time, but I don't hate you. All right?"

"All right," Ambrose said faintly. "I – uh, yeah, uh, me neither."

(-_Ambrose, his face a bloody mess, eyes staring sightless up and up and up_-)

Regal blinks away the image for the second time tonight and makes himself focus on the here and now. He lifts his hand up and lets it fall on Ambrose's shoulder, then slides it down his arm and to his wrist. "Well, then," he says. "If that's settled, then let's call it a night, shall we?"

Lightning flickers outside as something flickers in Ambrose's eyes.

Some sort of internal struggle, and he still looks exactly like a man at war with himself, doesn't he?

He looks like a man between wanting to refuse and wanting to give in.

How well Regal knows that place.

He tugs Ambrose's wrist again.

This time, Ambrose allows himself to be led away.

xx

Late summer night in Florida, and if you'd told Regal that he'd end his first night back at work by having sex with the man who'd effectively ended his career, he would have laughed.

That's exactly what happens, though.

It doesn't fix anything, it doesn't solve anything, it doesn't _change_ anything, but...

It's something that falls in that place between a distraction and a reprieve, where sins that can't be forgiven can at least be forgotten for a while.

Regal remembers it not as a narrative, but as a collection of moments taken in with his senses, without any coherent structure: the first deep sigh as he'd hooked fingers into the waistband of Ambrose's shorts and had sent them to the floor, leaving Ambrose standing completely naked while Regal himself stood fully clothed.

The first gasp when Regal had given into temptation and reached between them for Ambrose's erection.

The vibration of a moan pressed into a deep, slow kiss as he'd stroked and stroked and stroked.

The first rush of cool air on his skin when he'd pulled his shirt off.

The sight of stormy blue eyes peering up at him after Ambrose had, at Regal's urging, sunk to his knees. He'd resisted on the way down, and even as Regal had lowered his trousers enough to free his own straining erection, there was something very untamed and unbowed in the depths of that stare.

The thrill of uncertainty – would he get bitten? – as he'd guided himself into Ambrose's mouth.

The flood of relief melting into pure pleasure when he'd not only not been bitten, but had instead was rather expertly worked over. That wicked tongue, it had turned out, was also quite talented, and he'd gotten quite lost in it.

The aching loss when he'd made himself pull away.

The stiffness in Ambrose's posture when Regal had made it clear what was to come next.

The feel of victory as, some time later, he had Ambrose pinned under him, on his back with his legs open, unresisting. Ambrose had finally relaxed, and his hands found their way to Regal's hips to pull him in even further as they rocked together.

The excruciating rush of his orgasm tearing through him like a bullet, his hands clamped around Ambrose's wrists hard enough to bruise them, a great rushing roar in his ears.

The end: he'd turned them around so he was leaned back against the headboard, with Ambrose sitting propped up against him. He'd buried his nose in that damp hair – it'd smelled of rain and something earthy – and had reached around with one hand to take hold of Ambrose's leaking erection while the other arm circled that narrow chest and had just held on. He'd worked Ambrose slowly, languidly, and had watched in drowsy satisfcation as Ambrose came apart toward the end, shaking and straining, and at the end, he'd murmured, "Let go. It's all right. I've got you."

With a sound like a choked-off sob, Ambrose had.

xx

Afterward, they clean up, wordlessly, and then by some unspoken signal climb back into bed.

Ambrose looks absolutely fucked-out and exhausted, and Regal feels the same, and it's as close to a truce as they're going to get, so Regal cards fingers through Ambrose's hair – it's shorter than he remembers – and slides a hand down his stubble-rough cheek.

The storm in his eyes has finally blown itself out, and while he doesn't look like he's any more peaceful than he had earlier, he looks calm, sated, perhaps even relaxed.

Regal, whose own clamoring monster had fallen silent, feels his eyes drifting shut, but just as they're about to close, he swears he sees Ambrose disappear, just vanish completely.

His eyes snap open, though, and when he lifts his head he sees that Ambrose is still beside him.

Strange, that, he thinks as he finally lets sleep drag him under.

xx

That night, Regal dreams:

Someone is speaking to him. A low voice, rough and curling up around him like smoke: "I think we're all done now. I don't know why it was you. Maybe 'cuz I didn't give a fuck about anybody else, or maybe there's some other reason. Who knows? I just know I gotta go. Been stuck between places too fuckin' long as it is, so – I guess this is it. Might see you around sometime, might not. That's okay. Thanks for everything."

The voice blows away, and all of a sudden Regal's standing behind Ambrose on a stage. Ambrose has a crown on his head and his hands in the air. Like a proud parent or a proud teacher, Regal, the man behind the man, stands smiling.

No one sees the strings he's got in his hands or the blood spots on Ambrose's back where they're connected.

It feels like victory.

xx

Early morning now, just past dawn, and the sun is making inroads against banishing the night.

Weak light leeches in through the curtains, and Regal blinks against it, surprised to find himself awake at this unholy hour.

Awake and, he discovers, on glancing around, alone in his bed.

Frowning, he raises himself up to his elbows.

The house is tomb-silent around him.

Sighing, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Regal swings his feet off the bed and sits up, and is immediately startled to discover he's dressed.

He'd been naked when he'd gone to bed, hadn't he?

He and Ambrose both had been.

Well. Perhaps he'd woken up in the middle of the night and he simply didn't remember.

It's possible.

Doesn't seem right, though, does it?

Uneasy, he pushes his way to his feet and makes a quick trip to the toilet before padding out of his room.

He checks all the rooms upstairs, thinking that Ambrose might have slipped out to sleep alone, but there's no sign of anyone there.

Downstairs, it's the same story: empty room after empty room. No clothes in the dryer. No boots in the entryway.

Ambrose is gone.

(_Was he even here?_)

Probably gone to get his truck, Regal reckons, but that doesn't quite feel right, either.

Still, it's the only thing that makes sense-

(_-even if it doesn't_-)

-so he tries to shrug off his disquiet as he heads out of the laundry room and back into the kitchen.

It doesn't go, though.

Try as he might, he can't shake the feeling that things are skewed about ninety degrees form where he'd left them last night.

He spots his phone on the dining table, snags it, and heads into his living room.

As he sits down in his armchair, he realizes the bloody thing is off.

He never turns it off.

There's always a chance someone – his wife or one of his sons – might call.

He powers it back on, and while he waits, he glances out the front window.

The sky's early morning blue and clear. Last night's clouds have burned away, and the sun has taken back the day.

The phone buzzes in his hand, alerting him to the fact that he has, indeed, missed about half a dozen calls – all from Dusty Rhodes, from the looks of it – and a voice mail.

The voice message, he discovers, is from Dusty. It says: "Call me as soon as you get this. It's urgent." His accent, normally thick and rolling, is flat and subdued, his voice deeper and rougher than normal.

Frowning, a bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, Regal dials Dusty's number.

Dusty picks up on the second ring. "Regal," he says without preamble, "Jesus Christ, where have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you all night." His voice still has that flat, raw quality to it; it sounds almost nothing like his usual bright, flamboyantly voice.

"I've been home," Regal says. "I turned my phone off. What's wrong?"

He's not even sure what he's expecting to hear – break-in at the arena, wrestlers arrested for fighting at the bar, perhaps even a car crash – but Dusty's four words pull every bit of oxygen out of his lungs:

"Ambrose is dead."

(_But he already knew that, didn't he_?)

"...what...?" he hears himself whisper from a mile away. Suddenly he is immensely grateful he's sitting: his knees feel like water. The world around him has gone gray. There is no way – none – he heard Dusty correctly. "What did you say?"

"Ambrose is dead," Dusty says quietly. "Somebody jumped him in the parking lot last night after the show. Drove off with his truck. Rollins saw the end and tried chase the guy down. Never found him. Ambrose died right there in the lot."

_Ambrose died right there_.

That can't be possible.

Ambrose had been _here_ last night.

_Hadn't he_?

(_He wasn't, though, was he? Right before Regal had fallen asleep, he saw it._)

Regal swallows. His throat is dry. "Is this some sort of joke?"

"No," Dusty says. "I wish to God it was. What happened to that kid... I know he was nuts, but I wouldn't wish that on anybody. God have mercy."

Regal just stares dumbly at the wall. "Yes."

This can't be happening.

_How_ can this be happening?

He was just bloody _here_.

"You didn't see anything, did you?"

"...no."

Because he'd walked to his car and he'd...

...he'd gotten soaked and he'd driven home and Ambrose...

(_-was already dead in the parking lot_-)

...had been walking in the rain.

(_"Gar. Ret. Far. Ley."_)

Dusty's voice again, adding to the general chaos that is Regal's mind. "You all right? You sound funny?"

"I'm – a bit shocked."

"We all are, buddy," Dusty says. "Damn shame. Listen, the police want to talk to everybody who was here, even if you didn't see anything, so can you get down here ASAP?"

Regal scrubs a hand over his face. It's shaking. His entire body feels like it is. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

Without waiting for a reply, he disconnects the phone and pushes to his feet.

He has no idea where he's going, so it comes as a bit of a surprise when he finds himself standing by his car again. He pulls the driver's side door open and crouches down to run a hand across the seat.

It's still damp.

He'd been soaked to the skin last night.

The passenger seat, he finds when he reaches over to touch it, is bone dry.

Like no one had ever sat in it.

x

Last summer morning in Florida, and William Regal stands beside his open car door, head down.

He's a man at war with his own mind.

The events he _does_ remember about last night have taken on a kind of gauzy, surreal quality, almost like they're something that he watched in a film. They're too vivid to have been a dream, but...

_But._

There had been some odd little flashes here and there, hadn't there been?

Odd moments where he'd found himself disturbed by some image or another.

(_Ambrose with blood on his face instead of water, with his head beaten in, not there at all..._)

He closes his eyes and tries to assemble the jumbled pieces:

Walking through the parking lot on the way to his car, head down, eyes squinted against the rain-

(_-seeing something on the ground out of the corner of his eye_-)

-growing annoyed because he's forgotten his umbrella-

(-_someone lying on the ground, a man from the looks of things, in a soaked-through white tee shirt_-)

-and cursing himself for parking so bloody far away.

(_Ten quick steps, everything forgotten in a moment, as even from a distance he recognizes the man on the ground – would know those shoulders anywhere._)

He wishes he'd had the forethought to check the weather tonight, but things had been clear when he'd left for work this afternoon – not a cloud on the horizon.

(_Stumbling to a stop, kneeling down, a tentative hand on Ambrose's shoulder. "Are you all right?" he'd asked as he'd rolled Ambrose over._)

Now it's pouring out.

(_Drawing away in horrified revulsion at the bloody mess he finds: the front of the once white shirt stained pink from blood that's gushing out of a massive head wound, skull caved in a bit above his left temple, nose a smashed up mess, collarbone clearly snapped, arm broken, eyes wide open and staring up, up, up._)

The rain pelts him like it's trying to pierce his skin.

(_Somehow Ambrose isn't dead. Somehow he's still breathing, chest just barely rising and falling. And just for a second, the eyes focus. There's no recognition in them to speak of, but his lips shape soundless syllables: _"_Gar. Ret. Far. Ley. Gar. Ret. Far. Ley." He keeps making them, mouth just barely moving_._ Regal has no idea what they mean_.)

It's so bloody loud he can barely hear himself think.

(_A hitching breath, and Ambrose goes rigid, body seizing for an instant. Blood pours out of his nose and ears. His pulse becomes extremely faint._)

This walk seems like it's taking forever.

(_And Regal's last act: he turns Ambrose's face until it's submerged in the puddle. He strokes the rain-soaked and bloody back of Ambrose's head, thinking nothing at all. Then, his mind absolutely blank with shock and anger, and thick with fatigue, Regal pushes to his feet and puts his head down and makes his way back to his car. It never once occurs to him to call for help, to stay, to do anything. Numb and not thinking at all, he away and leaves Ambrose to die.)_

He drives off into night that is just_ gushing_.

It's like the sky has torn open.

And he is so bloody tired he can barely remember the walk from the arena to the car.

xx

Regal collapses against the side of his car and slides down to the floor.

He'd left Ambrose to drown.

Literally.

He'd just walked away, his mind as blank as a wiped-clean slate. He hadn't called authorities, he hadn't gone back into the building, he'd just gone to his car and had driven away.

And then he'd...what?

He'd hallucinated picking Ambrose up? Taking him here? Talking to him? Having sex with him?

He'd _imagined_ all that, after leaving the man to die alone in a cold, rainy parking lot?

"Oh, my God," he hears himself say.

And then he scrambles to his feet and runs into the house – ignoring the dizziness that threatens to take him from his feet – where he is violently sick.

It's a long time before he's able to stand again.

xx

Late summer morning in Florida, and now Regal's in a room with several hard-eyed police detectives and a Dusty Rhodes, whose eye bags have developed bags of their own, dark circles that make him look like some sort of beaten-down, doughy, sad-eyed clown.

They ask him if he saw or heard anything.

He watches clouds drift across the sky, and thinks, randomly, _Gar. Ret. Far. Ley._

He shakes his head and says, in a voice pitched low to conceal the grief and confusion still gnawing away ratlike at his insides, that he never saw a thing.

They believe him.

x

"..._this druggie wannbe wrestler I knew. Garret..._"

"_...I don't know why it was you_..."

"_...he'll get his, eventually_..."

Regal, once again on his way to his car, stops dead in his tracks.

All of a sudden, the clouds part in his mind, and everything at last becomes crystal clear.

It's absolutely crazy, but it's clear.

"Gar. Ret. Far. Ley."

The words of a dying man.

Reaching for his phone, Regal walks as fast as he can to his car.

xx

Late summer afternoon, Florida, and William Regal is standing beside a battered truck that's hunkered like an unwanted dog in front of a ramshackle house.

Like its owner, it's a truck William Regal would recognize anywhere.

God knows he'd spent enough time dreading seeing it at the FCW car park.

He runs a hand over its dirty flank. It's been out in the sun all day, so its dark hide is warm to the touch.

A thin voice cuts the quiet behind him: "Who the fuck're you and what the fuck're you doing?"

Regal turns and offers the young man behind him a disarming smile. "I was just admiring your truck here," he says. "A friend of mine had one like it once. Any chance it's for sale? I have cash."

The young man is tall, but thin, with buzzed-down brown hair. His face has the pitted, sunken look of a drug addict: caved-in cheeks, bulging eyes, cracked lips. His eyes are mostly pupil; the bits of iris Regal can see are a weak blue. "Uh, well..."

"Is your name Garret Farley?"

"...yeah. How did you...?"

"A friend of mine mentioned he knew you the other day. D'you mind if we take this into your garage? It's bloody hot out here."

"Um." Watery eyes dart over Regal's shoulder. "Well. Okay, but-"

"Great." Regal smiles again and leads the way up the cracked drive and into a garage that looks like something out of an episode of _Hoarders: _paper and bottles stacked floor to ceiling along two walls, a bench buried under glass bottles, various and sundry other items in haphazard stacks all over the place like a dumpster vomited all over the inside of this place. Regal, whi can practically feel the chemicals leeching into his skin, makes a mental note to take five showers when he gets home. "So," he says, pausing beside the wall of newspapers, "the truck?"

"Well, it's not exactly mine." He scratches the inside of his elbow. "I borrowed it from a buddy. Maybe you can talk to him."

"What's his name?" Regal asks.

"Uh. Ambrose. Ambrose."

"Oh, I know him. Big man with blond hair, right? Wrestler? How do you know him?"

"Crashed with him a few times 'til he kicked me out. Guy was a total dick, you know? He said he'd help me be a wrestler, but he got all asshole with me like he thought I was a junkie. Showed him who was a fuckin' junkie."

Regal slips a hand into his pocket. "How d'you mean?"

A narrow look and, "Nothin'. If you want the truck, go talk to him."

"Well, I would, except there's a problem. He's dead. His head was smashed in."

A twitch of a smile. "Yeah? Too bad."

"You don't seem very surprised."

"Guy was an asshole, like I said, so I mean, he had it coming."

Regal smiles again.

Because it all comes down to this, doesn't it?

Whether it was a hallucination or Ambrose's ghost, Regal's sure there's a reason what happened that night did.

Maybe he couldn't save Ambrose, but this?

This he can do.

He takes a quiet breath and says to the defiant little man in front of him, "And you have this coming."

In one quick, fluid motion, he snaps open his straight razor, steps right behind Farley, and slits his throat.

Farley crumples to the ground at Regal's feet and dies a fast, quiet death, his blood gushing down his throat and pattering to the floor soft as raindrops.

The neighborhood around him is quiet and still.

It might be a trick of the light, but when Regal looks back over at Ambrose's truck, it seems to be standing taller on its axles.

xx

Late summer night, Florida, and William Regal is sitting in a truck that doesn't belong to him, breathing in air that smells vaguely of cigarettes and old cologne. On the seat beside him there's a leather jacket, a cell phone, and a wallet. In the bed of the truck, there's is a bag full of wrestling gear and a garbage bag full of clothing and toiletries.

(_And another item wrapped in plastic bags, but one that isn't worth thinking about, really_.)

As meager as this sad little collection is, it's all here, and that's the important thing.

"Disaster or not, we wouldn't have been boring," he says. "I didn't regret much, but I regret that."

It's not much of a eulogy really, but he doesn't think Ambrose would mind.

Regal slides out of the truck and looks around. He's off in a reasonably secluded area, well away from the usual tourist places. It's just a short, weedy hill overlooking a hundred-foot cliff. The cliff hangs over the ocean, but it's too rocky below for cliff diving.

So as Regal releases the truck's parking brake and steps away, he's not terribly concerned about being seen.

The truck, which he'd left in neutral, begins to roll silently down the hill.

It picks up an impressive amount of speed as it heads down toward the bottom.

When it hits the edge of the cliff, it's doing ten or so miles an hour.

The front two wheels fly over the edge, and for one perfect moment the truck hangs in the air as if suspended over the hundred-foot drop below. Regal has time to think, amused, that if anything would try to defy gravity, to make a fool out of the laws of physics, it would be something that belonged to a man who made it a point of pride to defy every law and rule he could.

Gravity, though, proves it's not to be trifled with, as it grabs hold and pulls the truck down nose-first.

In the blink of an eye, the truck disappears over the cliff.

Regal walks to the edge, and leans over to watch. The moon is up and full, and provides plenty of light to see by, so he doesn't miss when the truck's nose hits a rock and flips end over end. He doesn't miss the way everything in the back goes flying out and eventually lands in the water. It's all weighted, so it all sinks.

The truck flips end over end once more and then dives rear-end first into the ocean.

The ocean rises up to swallow it whole, and drowns it completely within a matter of seconds.

"Wherever you are, I hope you're causing as much trouble as you can," William Regal murmurs. "Good bye, dear boy."

He smiles then, gently, and turns to make his way home.

**_Finis_**

_It's your funeral  
It's your dying day  
So make amends, one last spin  
Then leave with nothing  
-_Karnivool, "Aeons"

End Notes: Yeah, I don't know either.

If the section where every other part is in parenthesis and italics is confusing, it goes a little like this: what's not in italics is what he _thinks_ happens. What's in italics in parenthesis is what actually happened – the part he blocked out. It's the part he's finally able to remember. All the stuff in italics goes together, one after the other.


End file.
